Troubles Encountered in Laundry
Release Time:
2010-10-25 08:22
Source:
China Quality Daily
China Quality News (Intern Ge Fangfang, Reporter Zheng Jianling) Nowadays, more and more people choose to wash their clothes at laundries to extend the life of their clothes and ensure they look neat and presentable when worn again. However, washing disputes caused by this are also increasing. Recently, this publication has received some consumer complaints reflecting the problems and troubles they encountered when washing clothes at laundries, hoping to get help from relevant departments to effectively protect their legitimate rights and interests.
Ms. Zheng, who lives in Chaoyang District, Beijing, reported that in early August this year, she sent a pair of beige casual pants worth 1580 yuan belonging to her family to a laundry named Ruidesa in her residential community for washing. After carefully inspecting the pants, the store staff issued a "Complete Oil Stain Removal" receipt and charged a 10 yuan washing fee. Five days later, when Ms. Zheng went to pick up the clothes, the staff proactively informed her that several particularly obvious damaged spots on the seat of the pants were already there when the clothes were sent for washing. At this time, Ms. Zheng noticed these obvious damaged spots. But she clearly remembered that when she sent the pants for washing a few days ago, these "flaws" did not exist. If they had, she would have given up washing at the laundry because these damaged spots seriously affect the wearing effect. To put it another way, if the pants already had these damaged spots when sent for washing, why did the laundry not clearly indicate this on the receipt or notify her by phone? Ms. Zheng had a fierce negotiation with Ruidesa laundry and requested compensation. However, the store operator refused to take responsibility and asked Ms. Zheng to go to a professional institution for appraisal.
Regarding this complaint case, the reporter interviewed Pan Wei, Secretary-General of the China Commercial Federation's Laundry Professional Committee. He introduced that over the years, with the rapid development of China's economy and the continuous improvement of people's living standards, the laundry industry, especially the service of washing daily clothes, has shown rapid growth, but complaints caused by this have also been rising. Four or five years ago, among various complaints faced by China's service industry, laundry disputes closely related to people's lives ranked high. Although this situation has improved somewhat now, conflicts between consumers and operators have never stopped. The main reasons are related to the current low entry barriers in the laundry industry, low quality of practitioners, irregular services, and lack of professional appraisal institutions.
Pan Wei said that currently, China has not introduced special entry thresholds for operators engaged in daily laundry services. Practitioners only need to register with the local industrial and commercial department according to law, and after obtaining a business license and filing with the same-level commerce authority, they can operate. At present, many laundries appear on the market in the form of chain franchises, but due to inadequate management, there are some fake chain stores. In addition, some chain laundries, to accelerate enterprise expansion, neglect the regulation and technical guidance of franchisees after collecting franchise fees, resulting in problems such as fake washing, clothes being damaged or not cleaned properly, and loss. Moreover, China has no job certificate requirements for laundry staff, which significantly affects the quality, skills, and service levels of practitioners. Meanwhile, regarding washing quality standards and appraisal, China still needs to improve related content and institutions. For example, in washing quality appraisal, there is currently no government-authorized professional institution. In the Beijing market, although the Beijing Laundry Association has set up several appraisal stations from the perspective of regulating business behavior and protecting consumer rights, their appraisals mainly rely on expert visual inspection. For example, it is difficult to determine through appraisal whether the damaged spots on Ms. Zheng's clothes mentioned above existed before or after washing. But it is certain that the operator is obviously shirking responsibility. Currently, many irregular laundries choose to shirk responsibility when encountering washing disputes. The wording on consumers' clothing receipts is vague or subjective, and when problems arise, there is no standardized and reasonable solution.
Based on this, Pan Wei reminds the vast majority of consumers to grasp the following principles when choosing to wash clothes at laundries to avoid damage to their own interests.
First, choose to wash clothes at regular laundries with well-known brands. After years of development, many well-known brands have emerged in China's laundry industry, such as Funait, Rongchang, Yiersa, and Elephant King. They have established unified management and service models, unified material distribution, and staff training to ensure the quality of washed clothes and have standardized ways to handle problems.
Secondly, consumers should carefully and thoroughly inspect clothes before sending them for washing and clearly inform the operator of their washing requirements.
Third, consumers should eliminate overly high expectations for washing because not all stains can be removed. Some laundries exaggerate their advertising to attract customers, and consumers should treat this rationally.
Pan Wei also specially reminds consumers that during rights protection negotiations with laundries, they should be familiar with and apply the laws and regulations already introduced in China to protect their legitimate rights and interests. For example, the "Laundry Industry Management Measures" officially implemented on July 1, 2007. This measure not only regulates the conditions for operators to open stores, equipment use, wastewater and exhaust emissions, but also clearly states: operators should hang their business licenses in prominent places at business premises, clearly display service items, service prices, and complaint phone numbers; operators must not engage in false advertising, use stored-value cards for consumer fraud, deliberately conceal facts that cause clothing damage during processing, or other deceptive behaviors; if due to operator responsibility, the washed clothes fail to meet washing quality requirements or do not meet the requirements agreed with consumers in advance, or cause clothing damage or loss, the operator should, depending on the situation, reprocess, refund the washing fee, or compensate for losses.
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